Biologics, Specialty Drugs Dominate Next-Generation Products

Biologics, Specialty Drugs Dominate Next-Generation Products

Article excerpt

2013

PIPELINE REPORT

Editor's Note: This article was first published in the November 2012 issue of Pharmaceutical Executive, another Advanstar Communications publication. It has been updated to reflect the most current information available at press time.

Is the "lost decade" of declining pipeline productivity finally over? Our annual survey of analyst assessments of the state of drug development suggests so, with subtle shards of sunlight beginning to penetrate the gloom cast by the historic loss of exclusivity on more than $80 billion of blockbuster medicines since 2009, as well as the unexpected challenges in leveraging the promise of the human genome through the application of molecular biology to drug treatment.

Our discussions with a baker's do2en of investment analysts and experts provided insights that lead us to three strategic conclusions about new drug prospects for the year ahead.

First, the demand from payers and patients for better evidence of outcomes has imposed new discipline on the R&D process, which is bearing fruit - our list of promising compounds clearly shows an improved correlation between development priorities and areas of real unmet medical need. Second, the emergence of biologies as the dominant area of focus suggests that the process of drug development has finally caught up with the science unleashed by the genomics revolution. Third, the commercial potential of many of these compounds are cited sufficiently to lead us to conclude that predictions of an end to the blockbuster era of "billion dollar plus" medicines are premature.

It all goes back to the traditional premise that if the clinical need is there, revenues will follow. The big overhang is whether those revenues will be accompanied by the high profit margins required to defray an equally high level of exposure risk. The irony is that, even with the resolution of the so-called crisis in R&D and a return to a more productive pipeline, the industry must still confront a gradual but irrevocable erosion of control over access and pricing for these "next generation" products.

- William Looney, Editor-in-Chief Pharmaceutical Executive

Alzheimer's disease: Moving forward

Without a drug that truly modifies, if not halts, the progression of Alzheimer's disease, caring for patients in the United States alone is expected to top $1 trillion annually by 2020.

Late last summer, Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson (J&J) ended their joint development program on bapineuzumab, a late-stage monoclonal antibody targeting beta amyloid, a primary component of amyloid plaque build-up in the brains of most Alzheimer's patients. Beta amyloid appeared to be the most promising target for new drugs, which made bapineuzumab's failure all the more distressing.

Many disheartened onlookers assumed that Eli Lilly's solanezumab, a similar compound also targeting beta amyloid, was destined for the same fate. While solanezumab is not the game-changer in Alzheimer's that everyone is still waiting for, Lilly's Phase 3 EXPEDITION trial did evince a slowing of cognitive decline among patients in early stages of the disease. Whether or not solanezumab will eventually receive approval - and there are plenty of opinions in support of both answers to that question - what's more important is that companies working in Alzheimer's can now optimize their own development programs around Lilly's results.

There's a difference between the fact that it got the scientists and clinicians very excited, and the fact that it's not going to be approved and be a revenue generator for Lilly," said Ben Weintraub, senior principal and director of research at inThought, a division of Source Healthcare Analytics. The results were statistically significant but not clinically significant. But the fact that it had any effect [on cognitive decline] at all - this is the first drug that showed any hint of doing anything - is very exciting. …